Young birds being put away until yearlings.

[Buster121]

how many had you left Andy

I started with 23. Lost none in training. Lost 1/23 first race, 1/21 in second race. Had a bad third race where I lost 6/20 and 3/14 from the fourth race. I then had 10/10 from the next 2 races. I lost 1/10 on the seventh race and finally 9/9 from the last race. I also have 2 others that have raced but were missing for a couple of weeks during the season. So ended with 11/23 after some tough young bird races.

Well done Andy

[George and Morgan]

they say when the fields are harvested birds start returning will you breed the same as ybs lost Andy

[Andy]

they say when the fields are harvested birds start returning will you breed the same as ybs lost Andy

No George. I will be looking to breed either from the parents of birds I have in the loft or those that have raced well.
Now the season has finished I will go through all the birds in the loft to asses them. Those that I have nothing left from if bred from won’t be bred from next year.

[Devo1956]

It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

[Buster121]

It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

Agree all the way

[Andy]

It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

So Dev if you are breeding early do you think these youngsters need to be put on darkness?

[Devo1956]

It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

So Dev if you are breeding early do you think these youngsters need to be put on darkness?

Yes Andy i would put them on the darkness system, you would have very strong youngsters for racing. Early youngsters are the way forward for me.

[Andy]

It’s great having you back mate. But I do find myself contradicting some of your ideas. Not saying you are wrong just that my ways are different from yours. I suppose this is one of the great things about this sport. Many different roads to success.
Partly because my plan was to race North road with the CSCFC and hadn’t expected to do a lot of club racing I didn’t pair up until early March. My youngsters hatched between the first and third week of April. They had 5 training tosses at 12 to 14 weeks and started racing at just 14 to 16 weeks old. They were falling apart a bit during the season but didn’t stop them from racing. My youngest one hatched on 21st April. Had first race on 29th July and raced all 8 races. I am the only member in the club not on darkness and I was one of only 3 members who raced every week others that had done the darkness had youngsters going down with young bird sickness. My losses during this season were probably less than those on darkness and they held their own against much older youngsters.
Next year because of my change of system I will be breeding much earlier. I still won’t darken them but may try to give them some initial training at around 12 weeks for a few tosses before stopping them until a couple of weeks before young bird racing starts.
Having said all that I’m not really that interested in winning young bird races. It’s just giving them experience. Any prizes are a bonus.

[Devo1956]

It’s great having you back mate. But I do find myself contradicting some of your ideas. Not saying you are wrong just that my ways are different from yours. I suppose this is one of the great things about this sport. Many different roads to success.
Partly because my plan was to race North road with the CSCFC and hadn’t expected to do a lot of club racing I didn’t pair up until early March. My youngsters hatched between the first and third week of April. They had 5 training tosses at 12 to 14 weeks and started racing at just 14 to 16 weeks old. They were falling apart a bit during the season but didn’t stop them from racing. My youngest one hatched on 21st April. Had first race on 29th July and raced all 8 races. I am the only member in the club not on darkness and I was one of only 3 members who raced every week others that had done the darkness had youngsters going down with young bird sickness. My losses during this season were probably less than those on darkness and they held their own against much older youngsters.
Next year because of my change of system I will be breeding much earlier. I still won’t darken them but may try to give them some initial training at around 12 weeks for a few tosses before stopping them until a couple of weeks before young bird racing starts.
Having said all that I’m not really that interested in winning young bird races. It’s just giving them experience. Any prizes are a bonus.

Andy this is what the sport is about, the thing is there are no set rules. What works for you may not work for me, the main thing is others can take a bit of spice out of all our topics, and come up with their own recipe of success.

[Buster121]

If everything was the same we would all be winners and no losers